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The headline speaks for itself — how big (or little) is Florida’s sports betting market? It’s a question worth asking now that we’re approaching the one-year anniversary of when it went live (and stayed live).
Welp, that question is the topic of this article. We’re going to do our best to at least guesstimate how things are trending in the Sunshine State. There’s a lot to cover so let’s jump right into it!
Florida’s Betting Numbers Are Unknown
In most legalized sports betting markets, they’re obligated to report data — usually every month. Obligated because it’s a state-run operation that funds public programs, which means there has to be transparency. However, in Florida, this is not the case.
As you probably know, Florida betting runs through the Seminole tribe. They signed a 30-year agreement with the state in 2021. This grants them a certain amount of privacy when it comes to reporting figures. The same goes for other states where betting is operated via Native American tribes. They’re allowed to operate more “in the shadows” per se since they are the regulators — not the state.
So do we know anything about how healthy or unhealthy the Florida betting market is? Yes and no. We don’t know hard numbers, but we have an idea of where Hard Rock Bet — the mobile betting app the Seminoles own — ranks against others.
Earlier this year, Eilers & Krejcik Gaming released a report on national sports betting market share. E&KG are the leaders in betting data so their reports carry extra worthy industrywide. Anyways, they estimated Hard Rock Bet’s market share at 5 percent nationally. This is good enough for fifth overall — just ahead of Caesars but behind BetMGM for fifth.
Hard Rock Bet is in other states, but make no mistake about it, its Florida monopoly is where most of its success stems from. In the report, E&KG said: “Hard Rock was ranked 26th in the 1H22 edition of the report but has tracked upwards ever since.”
This upward trajectory coincides with its availability in Florida. While the agreement with the state was inked in 2021, numerous lawsuits meant Hard Rock Bet was consistently on and off inside the state. It wasn’t until this summer that Hard Rock Bet’s future in Florida was locked into place by the Supreme Court of the United States. The platform has been live ever since without any issues.
$2 Billion Market?
As we mentioned, aside from market share, we can’t quite put a finger on the state’s betting numbers — as in handle or revenue. Those numbers will remain a mystery unless the Seminoles want to report it, which we doubt they do. But it’s worth gauging what industry experts believe the financial numbers look like.
Let’s check in with Keith Buckley, who is a business and sports management professor at Rollins College just outside of Orlando. Buckley was extremely bullish on the legal sports betting potential of the state, saying the following:
“The expected revenues, I think, is going to be about $13 billion in profits, and the expectation of the betting revenues over the next 10 years in Florida alone is very significant…What we do know is that it’s a very vibrant industry that we know anecdotally, that people are using it. And as we go through the college football and the NFL football season, right now is [an] extremely popular [time to bet].”
Buckley also pegged the expected monthly handle at $2 billion per month. We’ll be honest, this is way, way too optimistic. Under these circumstances, Florida would have the biggest betting market in the entire country, even more than New York betting.
Speaking of which, let’s level-set Buckley’s projections with how things are faring right now in the Empire State. In the latest report for October 2024, New York bettors spent $2.3 billion in betting. This is the most ever wagered in a single month inside the state. Of that money, $176.3 million became revenue for the state.
Florida does have a bigger population than New York — by about 2 million. However, Florida’s population isn’t nearly as affluent. Plus, New York has a wide-open market with about seven different operators, all of which advertise to New Yorkers. Florida doesn’t have that luxury due to the monopoly the Seminoles have. They don’t need to advertise nearly as much given they’re the only option, which hurts the market ar large.
Offshore Betting Remains A Thing In Florida
There’s one more thing likely going against Florida and that’s the offshore market. While the Seminoles fought to stay active in the state, many local bettors flocked to popular offshore sportsbooks. Remember, the state mostly had betting offline until 2023 — all while betting proliferated the country elsewhere.
Undoubtedly, many offshore bettors stayed there and didn’t follow Hard Rock Bet. It’s widely believed that bettors are “sticky” — meaning they stick to one platform once they’ve become accustomed to it. An aggressive promotion could sway them to leave but Hard Rock Bet has not been one to splurge on player bonuses.
All this is to say there’s almost no way Florida is hitting those $2 billion months. Things are going good, but not that good.
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